RIFT Song of Dreams Release Details

Trion Worlds, developer of RIFT and Defiance, has a live stream team. They produce a Twitch.tv segment called Live Extravaganza. This past Friday, the RIFT portion of the stream focused on the new update that is now live for RIFT, Song of Dreams. The team had a guest dev, Nicholas McDowell, to discuss as they went about the new zone.

Nicholas McDowell, also known as captaincursor, is one of the developers who had a big hand in how Song of Dreams came about. His official position at RIFT is Lore Lead for the Guardians. One of the parts of Song of Dreams that he had a huge hand in was the actual song that is sung during one of the new quest progressions. He had a lot to say about the new update that you might not yet have discovered.

Releasing Over Time

Only some of Song of Dreams has been released. In an effort to keep content steadily flowing into the game, developers have set up a timeline where they will be releasing more content each week. To get to the new area, players will need to speak to Keeper Ivan in Tempest Bay. He is located near the teleporter. To keep this area from being overpopulated, the NPC will only show up once the character has reached the required level.

Song of Dreams introduces a greater challenge of 3D combat to the developers in terms of space. While the combat system is not perfect, they have achieved enough to make it work while they work on the finer points of dealing with water-based 3D space combat. Underwater warfronts are currently not a possibility but may not be fully ruled out.

New Rare Mob

There is a super rare mob introduced during this update as well. He can be found in several different places when he spawns, though the specific spots were not mentioned during the live stream. The new rare is called Sinister Presence. As of the live stream's production, no one had found and defeated him yet. Once defeated, he will satisfy a new achievement titled "Your Dreams Hate You."

Update 3.0 Clues

One interesting aspect of Song of Dreams is it hints at things to come in update 3.0, which has no release date. Nicholas McDowell said that hints of what to come rest in the song sung by NPC Arethea, who is a Atragarian Scion. This song is broadcasted over the world at some point as background music, but you can hear it word for word by working through the new quest lines.

Xezberaii the Akvan; foe of light, enemy of warmth, extinguisher of suns.Ancient foes of the moon's dreams, the Akvan slumber eternally.First in the cosmos, nightmare of the moon, nightmare of the dark, Akvan never wake.Upon the bones of Myrkur, in the chill of Tarken, the Akvan await the unraveling.Before words of creation, before Azdah's dragon brood, the Akvan ruled in slumber. (note: the chat text says through terror instead of in slumber)Mighty Akvan, sleep one more epoch. Wake not in my lifetime, or in that of my descendants.

RIFTannounced Song of Dreams just a few days before Halloween, and it went live on November 6th, 2013. Trion is full of great news as of late, with new content on the way as well as a return to the Steam store. For those of you who play RIFT and look forward to their in-game events, while the Autumn festival may be over, Yule will soon be upon us.